Biotechnology a key to produce nutrients enriched food

Biotechnology: A range of tools that use living organism for making or modifying a product, improve  plant, animals or trees for specific uses.

Biotechnology a key to produce nutrients enriched foodAgricultural biotechnology

This term is used for the improvement of livestock and crop through biotechnology tools. The biotechnology tools which are important for the agricultural biotechnology includes

  • Conventional breeding of plant
  • Tissue culture and micro propagation
  • Molecular diagnostic tools
  • Molecular breeding or market assisted

Conventional plant breeding

Farmer have been altered the genetic makeup of the crop they grow since the beginning of agricultural eight to ten years ago. Early the farmers select the best looking seed and plant and save them for the next year. The selection is based on the plants which have some feature include faster growth, higher yield, and pest and disease resistance.

In the 20th century the plant breeder better understood that how to select a superior plant and breed them and create new and improved verities of different crop. It can increase the productivity and quality of plant which we can grow for food, feed and fiber.

For example the hybrid varieties which has a tremendous impact on agricultural productivity. It can increase the yield rather than normal seed.

Tissue culture

Plants are reproducing by sexual mean, the seed and flowers create new generation. Egg cells in the flowers are fertilized by which the pollen from the stamen of the flower of the same plant which is self-pollinated. Each contains genetic material in the form of DNA. There are several types of tissues culture depending upon the plant which are used.

Anther culture is a method used to develop a new or improved varieties in short time. In this method anther are placed in a special medium and the immature pollen which are present in the anther divide and produce a mass of dividing cell. The varieties of rice are developed through anther culture in 1995.

Micro Propagation

It is a tissue culture method and develops for the production of disease free a rapid production of many uniform plants.

Benefits of Agricultural Biotechnology

  • The application of biotechnology in agriculture provides benefits to farmers, producers and consumers.
  • Biotechnology helped for the control of insect and pest and makes weed management easier and project crop against diseases.
  • By increasing crop quality the biotech crops can make farming more profitable and in some cases increase the yield.

This allows the farmer to spend less time for managing their crop and spend more time on other profitable activities.

Authors: Dr. Mubashar Nadeem,Muhammad Adnan,  Akash Munawar, Mubashir Hussain, Sanaullah Khan and Hassan Noorani

Department of agronomy, college of agriculture, university of Sargodha

By Muhammad Adnan

I am professionally qualified as agronomist and studying MSc. (Hons.) agronomy at College of Agriculture, University of Sargodha, Pakistan and focusing on plant nutrition and weed management. I Completed my B.Sc. (Hons.) in agriculture in 2018 from University of Sargodha.